


fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

by Lise



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (or possibly not), Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hallucinations, I'd say I was sorry but it would be a total lie, Loki Angst, Loki as Odin, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Thor: The Dark World, further weakening Loki's already tenuous attachment to reality, prime Loki's a goddamn mess material
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6383731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cast enough illusions and you risk forgetting what is real." </p>
<p>"Precisely." (Deleted scene, Thor: The Dark World)</p>
<p>Ruling Asgard isn't everything Loki thought it would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen the scene referred to in the summary, it's [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_iOTgLoru0)
> 
> I have a lot of feelings about Loki's relationship with reality and the way that he's not always terribly attached to it, and sometimes he _prefers_ that. But mostly I also have a lot of feelings about the way that inhabiting your father's identity when you barely have a stable sense of your own, have just nearly died, and are totally isolated from anyone you have a significant relationship with (while also feeling at least partially culpable for your mother's death) could fuck with Loki's head. And then this fic happened. 
> 
> Thanks to the anon who gave me the chance to write it.

The first time Loki sees Frigga, it is just a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. He is alone, fortunately, because even just a glimpse - a fall of curly hair, a familiar silk dress - stops him dead in his tracks, whirling around in a manner most unlike the Allfather whose skin he wears.

She is not there, of course. Frigga is dead. Killed by the same monster who tried to kill (should have killed) Loki. Though of course, Loki is dead. It is important to remember that: to exist in the reality in which it is true. That is how to lie well.

That time, Loki dismisses it - a trick of the eye, another lady with similar colored hair passing through. The second time is harder, when he enters the dining hall and there she is, sitting in her place at Odin’s side. She looks toward him as he enters, and smiles, and Loki recoils before he can control himself.

But even as the Einherjar hasten to his side, asking what is wrong, she is gone. Frigga’s seat is empty, as it will be forever in honor of the queen. (Odin has decreed it. Or Loki has. Sometimes it is hard to remember. The dividing line ought to be clearer, but an illusion is not just skin; it is deeper than that. Like a lie, it has to be lived.)

Loki’s first thought is that Frigga is haunting him. It is almost a relief, or would be if that did not mean she were restless, not at peace. He would deserve her haunting, her silent chastisement. (She smiled at him. No, at Odin.)

But no. Frigga would not linger: she is in Valhalla now, in her earned place.

Loki’s second thought is that he is going mad. It occurs to him with a strange sort of calm, as thought some part of him has already accepted the inevitability of such a thing. He was already mad, wasn’t he? It is simply a matter of degree.

Though, that being the case, it will make the ruse harder to maintain. He will have to work faster. Find ways to ensure that his fall will not mean the fall of everything he is working for.

(A part of him thinks it is a way to see Frigga again, at least.)

* * *

Loki takes to speaking to her, when he is alone. She is silent, and sad as he last saw her.

“If I could trade my life for yours, I would,” Loki confesses to her, among other things: that he fears Odin will never wake, that he fears he is too weak to do what needs to be done, that he is sorry, oh, he is sorry. Not for all of it, no - he cannot allow himself that much, not and continue to move forward - but for her.

He fears every day that he will wake and find her joined by another ghost: Laufey, perhaps. But though Frigga is present more and more often - standing beside him in meetings, sitting next to him at dinner, sitting across from him in a chair as Loki drinks himself into empty sleep - she remains alone. Once, at table, he reaches out without thinking to lay a hand on hers, as he saw Odin do many times. His hand falls to the empty table, and a part of Loki is almost surprised.

“My son,” she says, that night, on her knees and reaching out as Loki’s tongue grows numb and his vision wavers after his ninth glass of Aesir wine. He closes his eyes so he can imagine that he fingers brush his face. He can almost feel them.

He sleeps poorly. The dreams have started to burn through even the alcoholic stupor that kept them at bay for a time. Frigga watches him from across the room.

“Damn you,” Loki cries in sudden anger, throwing an empty decanter at her head. “Damn you, leave me alone!”

The decanter shatters and Frigga is gone. Loki’s head throbs and he bends forward, head in his hands.

* * *

It is Thor, now. He glowers at Loki through the entirety of his meeting with Alfheim’s ambassador. “My king,” one of the Einherjar says after. “Your hands are shaking.”

They are. Loki had not noticed. He does not like to turn to leave the room, because it puts Thor at his back and his neck prickles a warning, as though Thor is there in truth and not because Loki is losing his mind. He wishes he had not told Frigga to leave. He would rather have her.

“Imposter,” Thor says, voice a growl. That hope no longer exists to protect you, Loki hears, and wants to shudder. “Asgard withers and it is your fault.”

“Asgard thrives,” Loki snaps, before he can stop himself. His guards give him startled, alarmed looks, and Loki can feel the foundations of his ruse shiver on the edge of cracking. He forces himself to stare at them coldly until both look away. Thor’s judgment beats on the back of his neck like the sun.

“Your madness will infect them all,” Thor accuses. Loki clenches his fists. The Allfather would say silence, boy. The Allfather sleeps like death, and Loki wears his skin and it doesn’t fit. Nothing fits: nothing has since he fell and he broke and now there is no shape to hold what is left.

What am I doing here, Loki thinks. None of this is mine. None of it is meant for me.

But then, what is he? A dead man in the skin of another nearly dead.

“Coward,” Thor accuses that night, when he reaches for the wine. Loki pulls back.

He wakes screaming and sweating from something like fever dreams, choking on his own throat. Thor watches, impassive. “You swore you would kill me,” Loki says. “Did you mean it?”

Thor does not answer him.

* * *

Madness feels like dreaming, Loki decides. Madness feels like waking with his dead mother sitting on the side of the bed, and he can feel her stroking his face. “I am so sorry,” she says, and Loki’s eyes sting.

You are not real, he should say, to remind himself, but he does not want her to go.

Thor paces back and forth behind her. “You are too kind to him,” he says. “He deserves this hell of his own making.”

“Both of you,” Loki croaks. “Leave me.” He feels sick, suddenly, and stumbles from the bed, managing to make it to the bathroom before vomiting into the tub.

“Why did you not stay dead,” Thor asks.

“Don’t ask me,” Loki says, and spits. “It wasn’t - my idea.” He laughs, and it sounds like a dog coughing. He sways. “For Asgard,” he says. “For Asgard.”

“You only want to save yourself,” Thor accuses. Maybe that was true once, Loki thinks. He’s no longer certain he knows what that would mean. Does he have a self left to save? When he is no longer playing Odin’s role, what is left? He has played out all his other selves: brother, villain, sacrifice. He does not want to wear any of them again.

“What would you have me do,” Loki asks, turning on the water to wash away his mess and slumping to the floor. He looks at the Allfather’s hands (his hands).

Thor makes no answer. Perhaps he does not know either. Frigga reaches out to comfort him and he flinches back; he has not earned it.

* * *

Loki looks up spells of unmaking. He tells himself they are for his enemies, and after a fashion they are. It is a paradox, his scholar’s brain informs him. You cannot cast the working of your own destruction.

The world feels foggy and distant today. He is no longer certain any of this is real. He has begun to suspect perhaps he is still falling, and the fragile edges of this long dream will crumble soon and leave him in the dark.

Thor’s hand on the back of his neck feels warm. “What makes you think you have earned freedom,” he says, gesturing at the pages in front of him. Loki presses his hands to his eyes hard enough to hurt.

“Are you growing more solid?” He asks. “I can feel your touch, now.”

“Someone should touch you,” Frigga says, sitting down and reaching for his hands. Hers are soft, the calluses of her shieldmaiden youth worn away. “And who else is there?”

No one, Loki knows. “Did I make you?” He asks. He has no memory of doing so, but they seem too clear to be hallucinations. The clearest thing there is, these days; clearer than his own self. Sometimes he has to go and stare at the Allfather’s aged and sunken face, reminding himself what he is not.

“Does that matter?” Frigga asks, so gently. Loki lays his head down on the desk and closes his eyes.

“I am so tired,” he confesses. “Please. Tell me I can rest soon.”

“Ah, Loki,” Frigga says, and Thor says, ruthless, “never.”

* * *

The day comes when he answers a question Frigga asks in front of a councilor. When he responds to Thor instead of a courtier. He can hear the whispers of the Allfather’s madness. What next, he thinks, but he already knows.

Loki is there when he returns to the Allfather’s suite. Bending over the golden shimmer, gaunt and drawn face cast in shadow. His face is both nightmare and mirror.

He sets Gungnir aside and removes the crown. “Is it over now?” He asks.

“Not yet,” Loki says. He crosses the room and meets his eyes, studying his face. “You are fracturing. Or is that fractured?”

“I know,” he says. He does know. He can feel it - the edges starting to grate in his mind. The tears starting to form in his skin. (He can’t remember making them. There are gaps in his memories. Gaps in himself, holes that he can’t fill in.) “Please.”

Loki kisses his forehead, then his lips. “You can do this,” he whispers. “You can.”

“And then?” he asks.

“And then nothing,” Loki says. “I promise. Nothing at all.”

He closes his eyes and tries to breathe, eyes burning.

“Come,” Loki says. “There is still so much to be done.”


End file.
